Synopsis for Legacy of Shadows (via Goodreads): All I wanted was to keep my head above water. To survive long enough to hit my eighteenth birthday so I could escape the nightmare that my homelife had become. But all of that was turned upside down the moment they showed up.
The best friend from my past. The surly brooder. The kind-hearted nerd. The king of campus. The dark one.
They say they’re here to give me a fresh start in a place where I’m safe, warm, and cared for. And I can’t deny the pull I feel to all five of them. The buzz that lights beneath my skin when they touch me. And for the first time, I feel like I might belong.
But not everything is as it seems. These guys have secrets. Ones that will rip my world wide open. But when a dark evil begins stalking us, we’re all in for the fight of our lives…
*this review is for all three books in the series
Was this series good? No.
Did I enjoy reading it? Yes.
I read all three books in the Supernaturals of Castle Academy series in two days. They're short and fun to read, but I laughed out loud during serious moments, and actually caught myself rolling my eyes on several occasions because of how cringey some of the dialogue was.
The high school setting and drama was overdone. I don't think they made it through a single day without something bad happening while they were at school. They would leave for this or that crisis, or something terrible happened to Leighton, and then they'd leave without really worrying about the consequences. However, they always worried about getting detention for fighting or being late (the least of their problems). The mean girl bulling was laughable and not at all believable. It got old fast.
Leighton, LeeLee, passed out so many times I lost count. She was always waking up in her room with medical equipment and finding it difficult to open her eyes, yet somehow she managed to pull through once she realized she was surrounded by her "guys." That plot line felt abused. It didn't help that she repeatedly put herself in bad situations RIGHT AFTER everyone said they'd be close by and nothing would happen to her. She just conveniently found herself in danger an obnoxious amount of times.
She also said the weirdest, most random things... like wishing hemorrhoids and diarrhea on people instead of actual death threats. Her mates found it endearing, but it was obnoxious. She acted like a child and not the 17-18 year old she was supposed to be. It made the sexual aspects of the story feel weird. Don't even get me started on the mewling and milking. Ack. Their relationships and declarations of love happened way too quickly and with seemingly no effort on her part. They worshipped the ground she walked on... but why?
I also wished the author had developed a relationship between her and Sam, or the girl from the department store. Leighton was never with anyone other than Colt, Ronan, Declan, Dash, and Trace. It would have helped her character development if she'd had friends. (Trace was easily my favorite. The others tended to blend together, unfortunately.)
Additionally, explaining her magic in more detail and actually making her work to learn how to use it would have helped with believability. She was just oh-so perfect and an expert at overcoming her past. Where was the struggle? And I'm not talking about the endless panic attacks that always resulted in her mates coddling her. Leighton needed a backbone.
I enjoyed the world and the supernatural abilities. You don't see too many stories out there about incubi, and I've always found them interesting. The combination of casters, shifters (dragon and wolf), vampires, incubi, and demons kept things interesting. More history surrounding the individual groups would have been nice.
Overall, it was fun to read. The books themselves are short and the plot moves along fairly quickly. I wish the characters had felt older, instead they acted like 13-14 year old's playing at being adults. Even the adults acted like children. Some of their personalities gave me mental whiplash. I think fleshing out the characters would have made this story so much better than it was, and making their situation feel believable despite being fantasy. (★★⭑☆☆)
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“Stuff and nonsense. Nonsense and stuff and much of a muchness and nonsense all over again. We are all mad here, don't you know?”
― Marissa Meyer, Heartless